Joe Lee (李運傑) packs plenty into his latest film, Gatao, a gangster drama that features plenty of bloodshed, turf wars, romance and familial bonding.
Unfortunately none of these tropes click.
Despite superior production values and a handsome cast led by Alien Huang (黃鴻升) and Sunny Wang (王陽明), the film fails to depict the fascinating world of gatao — Taiwan’s criminal world — and instead devolves into soap-opera frippery filled with narrative loopholes and false emotions.
Photo courtesy of Winday
In the beginning of Gatao, gang life involves street fights with sticks and knives, but everyone is under the control of Boss Yong (Tsai Chen-nan, 蔡振南). To Xiong (Huang), who is arrested during a turf battle, serving time for the gang is proof of brotherhood. Upon his release from prison, Xiong is immediately promoted by Boss Yong to oversee a traditional market where he grew up.
At first, life at the market is good. Xiong knows everyone and takes up the responsibility to look after the shopkeepers. He also strikes up a romance with childhood friend Lei Lei (Christina Mok, 莫允雯). Meanwhile, Xiong’s popularity grows, becoming a threat to Yong’s right-hand man Qing Feng (Sun Peng, 孫鵬),who has a crush on Lei Lei, and believes he is next in line to head the gang.
Things quickly deteriorate when Michael (Wang), the US-educated son of the late rival-gang leader, returns to claim his throne. Depicted as crude and money-driven, the entrepreneurial Michael sees himself as a property developer and has set his mind on what he views as a profitable urban renewal project. But Michael’s plan involves tearing down the market.
Photo courtesy of Winday
Conflicts and bloodletting soon ensue. Torn between his responsibility to the gang and his love for the grandmother who raised him and Lei Lei, Xiong now must make difficult choices that eventually lead to betrayal and murder.
The film’s promising examination of traditional values and runaway capitalism largely goes astray. The motives and struggles of the characters are written and performed, but never felt and conveyed. Throughout the over 100-minute long screening time, there is a constant bombardment of melodramatic cliches and genre gimmickry, leading to nothing more than lame mimicry.
One thing worth mentioning is the film’s lush cinematography that graciously captures a familiar side of Taiwanese life, ranging from fluorescent-lit, crowded interiors to the messy, bustling night markets.
Photo courtesy of Winday
Under pressure, President William Lai (賴清德) has enacted his first cabinet reshuffle. Whether it will be enough to staunch the bleeding remains to be seen. Cabinet members in the Executive Yuan almost always end up as sacrificial lambs, especially those appointed early in a president’s term. When presidents are under pressure, the cabinet is reshuffled. This is not unique to any party or president; this is the custom. This is the case in many democracies, especially parliamentary ones. In Taiwan, constitutionally the president presides over the heads of the five branches of government, each of which is confusingly translated as “president”
Sept. 1 to Sept. 7 In 1899, Kozaburo Hirai became the first documented Japanese to wed a Taiwanese under colonial rule. The soldier was partly motivated by the government’s policy of assimilating the Taiwanese population through intermarriage. While his friends and family disapproved and even mocked him, the marriage endured. By 1930, when his story appeared in Tales of Virtuous Deeds in Taiwan, Hirai had settled in his wife’s rural Changhua hometown, farming the land and integrating into local society. Similarly, Aiko Fujii, who married into the prominent Wufeng Lin Family (霧峰林家) in 1927, quickly learned Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) and
The Venice Film Festival kicked off with the world premiere of Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia Wednesday night on the Lido. The opening ceremony of the festival also saw Francis Ford Coppola presenting filmmaker Werner Herzog with a lifetime achievement prize. The 82nd edition of the glamorous international film festival is playing host to many Hollywood stars, including George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Dwayne Johnson, and famed auteurs, from Guillermo del Toro to Kathryn Bigelow, who all have films debuting over the next 10 days. The conflict in Gaza has also already been an everpresent topic both outside the festival’s walls, where
The low voter turnout for the referendum on Aug. 23 shows that many Taiwanese are apathetic about nuclear energy, but there are long-term energy stakes involved that the public needs to grasp Taiwan faces an energy trilemma: soaring AI-driven demand, pressure to cut carbon and reliance on fragile fuel imports. But the nuclear referendum on Aug. 23 showed how little this registered with voters, many of whom neither see the long game nor grasp the stakes. Volunteer referendum worker Vivian Chen (陳薇安) put it bluntly: “I’ve seen many people asking what they’re voting for when they arrive to vote. They cast their vote without even doing any research.” Imagine Taiwanese voters invited to a poker table. The bet looked simple — yes or no — yet most never showed. More than two-thirds of those
RSS